The way we were

Can you remember the day before the 5^th of November?

Cheeky we were tying dustbin lids to doors

Running away as dustbin lid clatters

You little bugger I’ll tell your mam

The old guy screamed shaking his fist

Playing out all day, as if every day

Was the first day of summer school holidays?

Some days we were star ship captains

Warp factor 7 as I sit in the old hollow of the old oak tree

A fine captain’s chair indeed

Another day we were knights of Camelot

Saucepan helmets, walker’s crisp box for armour

Playing Kick can and you were always it

Cup final day on the old wreck

I was Billy Bremner and you was Bobby Charlton

Making Go Carts from old pram wheels, and the scaffolding plank we nicked

From the new building site, building blocks of flats that soon became blocks of ruin

Remember always getting that splinter,
waiting in dread as our mams applied that old tcp

Our mams with bright red legs

Results for ironing our clobber standing near the old coal fire to long

We were drunk on life everyday an adventure

No play stations for us, no paranoid induced media hysteria to keep us locked inside

No dependency on Mobile phones

And yet our mams by magic always knew were we were

And if by some strange Sherlock Holmes mystery, they always found out what we were up to

Back home for tea 5 minutes late with a clip round the ear

Bath water turning a mucky grey

“Look at the bloody state of you” she would say

Drifting off to sleep you smile that smile

Thinking of a new adventure

Tomorrow perhaps I’ll be Captain Kid and sail the seven seas

©Martin Hickman 2013